684
Chinese annals record a Comet observed in the West in September and October. This accords with the computed time for the course of Halley’s Comet that year. Immediately after the Comet’s appearance, China and the Far East were ravaged by the black plague. Millions died of it. Baeda the Venerable, in his “Chronicle of the English People,” records that the plague also reached England.
607
All Europe and the former Roman Empire were in such dire confusion during this period that no records of this year, either astronomic or historical, have come down to us. Messrs. Cowell and Crommelin, however, have computed astronomically that the Comet must have appeared during this year. All we know is that Italy and the Latin World were overrun by ravaging Slavonian hordes from Hungary, who made all the country run with blood.
530
Of the Comet this year, likewise, there is no astronomic record. All we know is that the appearance of a Comet is noted in European chronicles. It was followed by a virulent outbreak of the black plague.
In the legendary history of Merlin, the ancient British seer, it is stated that on the appearance of a Comet this year he prophesied that Uter, brother of Ambrosius, on the death of the latter, should rule the kingdom; that a ray from the Comet which pointed toward Gaul presaged a son who should be born to him and who should be great in power; and that the ray “that goes toward Ireland represents a daughter, of whom thou shalt be the father, and her sons and grandsons shall reign over all the Britons.” These prophecies all came true.
451
The Comet which appeared over Europe this year has been proven by Laugier to have been Halley’s Comet.
It was seen in France just before the monster battle on the Catalaunian Fields (Châlons-sur-Marne), when Aetius, the last of the Romans, together with King Theoderic and his Goths, stemmed the tide of Hunnish invasion led by Attila, the “Scourge of God.”